TEACHING ENGLISH IN PRIMARY

Introduction

There are five elements to Teaching English training experiences:

Core modules, course community, live events, workbook and resource pack, and
certificates.

Core online modules

Core online modules are at the centre of TeachingEnglish online training experiences.
They provide a blend of theory, practical teaching suggestions, case studies and
opportunities to interact with learning content that explores new ways of teaching.

Online learning strategies

Check schedule in advance and make a note of any important dates for your course.
Such as, live sessions that you want to attend and maybe the course end date.

what works around your other commitments and when you're best able to
concentrate.

avoid multitasking and if you can, any distractions

Try to study in short, focused bursts with regular screen breaks.

Familiarise yourself with the support available to you and check you know how to
access it;

Always try to remember what you're working towards, what your goals are, and
recognise the progress that you're making in getting towards them  motivating and
can also help you make better choices when presented with different learning options

monitor your self-talk; how you speak to yourself.

A summary of effective learning strategies

Be clear about your goals

Prepare your study pace

Look after yourself

Monitor your self-talk

Know where to get help

 MODULE 1. Understanding how primary children learn

UNIT 1: Learning theories

Teaching tip

You can understand a lot about how children learn from reflecting on your own
childhood experiences of learning and observing the children that you teach.

Theories of learning

+ Piaget's theories

He said that children learn language and concepts through active exploration and by
interacting with other children and their environment. He also said that children
develop differently and learn new things only when they are ready to do so.

He said that education systems should therefore allow for children to learn at their
own pace, and encourage learning without teachers being the centre of this process.

+ Maria Montessori

She started her own school to encourage a different style of learning at the beginning
of the 20th century.

They're set up to allow children to actively explore and discover new things from each
other, independently and from the environment, encouraging the use of all five
senses.

Teachers aren't central to activities, and there are no whiteboards. All children are put
together and aren't grouped by age, sex or level.

 Different theories that are beliefs of both Piaget and Montessori:

 Children learn by doing.

 Children learn from each other and the environment.

 There is no 'average child'. Each child has his or her own learning pace.

 Children need an environment in which they can explore and discover new
things.

 Children don't need explicit direction from a teacher.

+ Margaret Donaldson

From her own experiments, she proved that children's capacity for learning is
increased when given some direction from an 'educator'. She concluded that children
naturally respond to an authority figure.

She also said that learning is increased when children are given a framework that is
meaningful to them and reflects their own reality.

Children learn by doing, but they need a reason for doing activities.

+ Lev Vygotsky
Vygotsky's research also showed that children learn better from more competent
partners. He developed the concept of the 'zone of proximal development', which
describes the gap between what a learner can do alone and what they are able to
achieve with help and guidance.

A child therefore learns better if they are guided or if their learning is 'scaffolded' – or
supported – rather than left to work independently.

The ideal environment for learning is therefore one where children are placed in small
groups of mixed ability within a classroom so that they can learn from each other.

The teacher is not central to activities but should move around the classroom to
encourage guided discovery. They should demonstrate and help children find out and
try by themselves. Children should be actively involved in activities that allow them to
learn and discover something new.

 Donaldson and Vygotsky believed that children need to explore but need guidance
from an educator or more competent partner to learn more effectively. They also
believed that children learn by doing, but need a framework that is meaningful to their
world.

Summary of all theories

The main implications of the beliefs and concepts for primary teaching are:

 A learner-centred (not teacher-centred) approach is needed.

 Learners need to be actively involved in the learning process, not passive

recipients.

 Interaction with others through pair work and group work is important.

 Teachers should provide opportunities for learning rather than forcing learning.

 Children need an environment in which they can explore and discover new
things.

 A multisensory approach to learning is needed.

 The teacher's role is to support, encourage and guide.

 Activities need to be meaningful to the children.

 Activities need to be 'scaffolded' so that children are supported and guided and
can achieve.

Theories related to how children learn

+ Jerome Seymour Bruner

Bruner's scaffolding theory is that children need support and active help from their
teachers and parents if they're going to become independent learners.
According to Bruner's scaffolding theory, children are dependent on those who have
more knowledge or competence than they do in certain areas when they begin
learning.

As learners gain more independence and confidence, the help from teachers and
parents decreases until the learners are independent learners.

This is like scaffolding, which is used to support construction workers and their
materials when they are building, but is removed when a building project is finished.

+ A total physical response (TPR) activity

Learners need to be actively involved in the learning process, not passive recipients.

A multisensory approach to learning is needed.

Activities need to be 'scaffolded' so that children are supported and guided and can
achieve.

 Learners are active and use multiple senses: listening, watching and doing the
actions.

Listing activities

1. Activity 1: Five things

 Say a topic, for example furniture, animals or what you can do in the house.

 In groups, learners write five things related to that topic on pieces of paper.

 Groups decide on one item from their list to add to categories on the board.

2. Activity 2: Begins with…

 Give learners three categories, for example Food – Transport – Animals.

 Say a letter of the alphabet. Each team writes a word for each category, for
example 'B' – learners could write Burger – Bus – Bee

 To make this a multisensory activity, learners could add their lists to pieces of
paper around the classroom.

Feedback

Listing activities:

 are learner-centred – learners create their own lists

 involve learners in the learning process

 use group work

 provide an environment in which learners can explore and discover new things

 give opportunities for using multisensory approaches, for example by creating

lists on papers stuck on walls

 become meaningful to children on different levels – first as they work together

to create lists, and on a deeper level when they are asked to select items and
give reasons for their choices.
Other activities include:

 group projects

 drama

 role play

 mime

 action songs.
Unit 2 – Motivation

Characteristics of primary learners

Primary learners have short but developing concentration spans and memory.

Primary-age children often find it difficult to share and need the teacher to lead by
example, especially in their first years of school.

Children:

 know that the world has rules and feel happy with routines

 can understand more quickly using context, rather than language

 use their hands, eyes and ears to understand things

 have short but developing concentration spans and memory

 often find it difficult to work together and share.

Children:

 have a colourful imagination and like to be creative

Activities should include drawing, storytelling, invention, drama, and arts and crafts.

 use language skills before they understand the grammatical structures of

language

Formal grammar teaching isn't relevant with young children. They learn chunks of
meaningful language, such as: How old are you?, What's your favourite colour?

 like to copy and imitate others

Activities should include opportunities for repetition in enjoyable contexts.

  love songs and music

Lessons should include songs, rhymes and chants.

 have a strong sense of fairness and understand that games have rules

Instructions for games should be carefully set up because children have a strong
sense of fairness.

 are curious and frequently like to ask a lot of questions.

Teachers should encourage maximum learner participation and involvement.

Activities

+ Circle drills

Children sit or stand in a circle and repeat language.

There are many ways you can use a drill.

For example:

 learners can respond to what the previous learner says, e.g. I like chips – I like
chips too and I like chicken – I don't like chicken. I love peaches, etc.

 learners have to remember what everyone before them says – this is better in
smaller groups

 you can change the main language focus and the vocabulary, e.g. Today I'm
wearing a red skirt/black shoes/a white T-shirt…; In the classroom, there is a
blackboard/there are four windows.

+ Make your own board game

1. Give pairs a blank board game.

2. In each square they write a question or draw a picture. These should be related
to recent topics and vocabulary. (Or give each pair a different topic or a couple
of pages from your coursebook.)

3. When they've finished, join pairs together to play each other's board games.
When they land on a square, they have to answer the questions or name the
picture.

4. You can keep the games to use in future lessons.

Feedback

 The activity encourages working together – both to create the game and when
they play – taking turns and playing by the rules.

 Learners can be creative in thinking of interesting questions and drawing and

decorating their games.

 To create and play the game, learners need to use their hands, eyes and ears,
making the activity multisensory.
  The board-game format makes reviewing and practising the language more fun
and motivating.

 The activity is completely learner-centred. They need some guidance and

modelling in order to explain what to do, but then they work independently. You
may need to offer some inspiration, such as flashcards, the relevant part of their
books or some prompts on the board.

+ Mingle swap

1. Give each learner a card with a question/prompt related to language you are
learning. These can be personal questions – What did you do yesterday? What's
your favourite sport? – or a little challenge: Name three yellow foods. Think of
an animal beginning with 'e'.

2. They mingle and ask and answer each other's questions.

3. Each time they ask and answer, they swap cards with their partner and find a
new partner. If they get the same question again, it's OK because they ask a
different person.

4. After a few minutes when they've swapped several times, stop the activity and
get some feedback about what they found out.

Feedback

 The activity gets learners moving around.

 Learners are fully participating and usually enjoy finding out about their friends.

 The personal questions make the content relevant to learners' lives.

 The activity is dynamic so can be kept short. You can also adapt the content
easily to keep it varied.

Motivation

It's the thoughts and feelings you have that make you want to do something and
continue to want to do it, so that you turn your wishes into actions.

Intrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation comes from an internal force, such as interest in language

learning or the desire for further personal development in general.

The wish to do an activity is based on the enjoyment of the activity itself, rather than
the external benefits it might have.

Often, high-level learners have a lot of intrinsic motivation, as they continue to study
a language beyond their practical needs.

Examples:

You speak English with your friends outside of school.

You choose to learn English.

You’d like to understand films or TV programs in English.

Extrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation is caused by external pressures such as work, because a parent

has sent a learner to class or the need for a qualification (a certificate, for example) in
the language.

The wish to do an activity is based on the external rewards you may receive, such as
points, prizes, compliments, money, test scores or grades.

Examples:

Your parents want you to learn English.

There is peer pressure to learn English.

You need to pass an exam.

It’s part of the school syllabus.

Children's motivation

Young children's motivation is likely to be intrinsic – they like their teacher and like the
lessons or activities.

Some parents and schools may push children to think about exams and future jobs.
This produces a type of extrinsic motivation that is fed by fear rather than enjoyment.

Reducing stress

Teachers need to encourage children's natural motivation in a stress-free, enjoyable

learning environment. Creating a relaxed and inclusive atmosphere can make children
more relaxed in the classroom.
Unit 3 – Being learner-centred

Child development

This development can be divided into six different areas:

 behaviour

At four to five years old, children are very enthusiastic and unsystematic when doing
tasks.

They are also keen to communicate and can interrupt activities to get attention.

 emotions

From four to five years old, children can have 'tantrums' – suddenly being in an
uncontrollable, very bad mood.

From eight to nine years, children can usually control their emotions better.

 intelligence

At eight to nine years old, children become more realistic and rational as well as more
objective.

They discover coincidence and are more aware of the outside world.

 language

At four to five years old, children can usually express themselves in their own
language.

 physical development

At four to five years old, children are still developing and need to move around a lot.

By eight to nine years old, they are more able to sit still for longer periods. They have
greater control of their body.

 sociability

At eight to nine years old, children start to make relationships with their peers and get
security and self-esteem from being part of a group.

They can also begin to work well in teams at this age.

 At different ages, children's development can be very different in each of these

areas.

Classroom implications

What does this mean for you, as a primary teacher?

Because of their developing emotional and physical characteristics, activities for

young children should be varied and should help develop large motor movements
(running, jumping) and hand–eye coordination (cutting out, modelling).

Emotions: Try to be warm, fair and calming and offer constant encouragement.
Intelligence: Activities should use toys that imitate real life (cars, food). For six- to
nine-year-olds, activities should develop reasoning, logic, creativity and imagination.

Language: Activities should develop oral and writing skills.

Sociability: You should use group work to encourage sociability and sharing. With six-
to nine-year-olds, think about values and changing dynamics in group relationships.

Behaviour: Encourage communication. Monitor aggressive, rebellious or silent

behaviour without overreacting. Try to be a good role model, being sensitive, fair and
encouraging.

English vs your own language

When children are learning their own language, they have a lot of exposure to it and
they learn different types of language.

They learn from family and teachers, and the focus is on communication using
directions and commands. Parents usually highlight mistakes by rephrasing and
repeating. They also expand sentences for the children. In the classroom, there are
generally limited interaction patterns with only one teacher.

Because time is limited in the primary English classroom, teachers tend to focus on
accuracy and grammatical structures.

More typical for children when learning their own language:

+ Taught by family and teachers

+ Constant exposure

+ “Teacher” concentrates on communication

+ “Teacher uses lots of directives and imperatives

What does this mean for teaching?

You may feel that there is too little time to cover the syllabus. However, as you've
seen, children need time to experiment with the language, discover and enjoy using
the language, and be involved in meaningful and engaging activities that appeal to all
the senses.

Enjoyment and a positive learning experience increase motivation, which in turn

promotes learning. It's precisely because there's so little time and so little exposure
that your approach to primary teaching needs to be based on effective strategies and
techniques.

Three activities that use a learner-centred approach:

1. Coaches and sportsmen activity

Set-up: The teacher demonstrates with two learners. She models correct language
and pronunciation during the demonstration. She puts learners into a group and
allocates roles using picture cards, which makes the activity immediately learner-
centred.
Purpose: This looks like a review or consolidation activity, as the learners are familiar
with the language they're expected to produce. The teacher has also set up classroom
rules.

The activity in the video appeals to the learners for various reasons, including the
following:

 The teacher scaffolds the activity and makes it learner-centred.

 There's an element of role play, with learners acting as the teacher.

 The learners are physically involved as they respond to the coach (TPR).

 The teacher gives praise for good behaviour.

 They're using characters that learners are familiar with for the role cards.

 The teacher gives the children a brief time for social interaction (meet your
coach).

 There are rules for the children to follow.

 Every child gets the chance to take on both roles.

2. Flashcards and stories

a. Flashcards

Set-up:

 She uses flashcards to review the animal words and It's a…

 She posts the flashcards on the whiteboard.

 She asks learners to choose their favourite picture.

 She has a vote (using hands up).

Purpose: a lead-in or warm up.

Teaching strategies or resources:

 The learners are sitting on the floor, making the atmosphere very relaxed.

 The teacher uses a calm, quiet voice.

 The flashcards appeal to learners.

 The learners get the chance to express their opinions (likes), making the activity
learner-centred.

 There's an opportunity for moving around and standing up.

b. Stories

Asking children to mime incorporates movement and helps you to know that they
understand.

Select the key vocabulary, though, as you don't want to overload them or interrupt
the flow of the story too much.
Ask questions as you go. That way you can make sure learners understand the story.

Make sure learners understand they are supposed to guess, rather than give you a
correct answer.

If the level allows, you can demonstrate with 'crazy' suggestions, such as Maybe the
little red hen will eat her friends?!
 MODULE 2. Understanding thinking skills for primary

Unit 1. Children’s development

Course book

Course book should include resources, activities and exercises that give your learners
the chance to practise the language.

It's important for you to evaluate your coursebook and decide which sections and
activities are useful and meet the learning objectives for your class.

Typical activities you can find in coursebooks for primary learners:

Concepts and cognitive skills

What is cognitive development?

Cognitive development is the development of thinking skills in children. This happens

at different rates.

five factors which can affect children's cognitive development:

Whether the child is brought up in a stimulating environment

If the child's food is healthy

Whether the child gets enough sleep

If the parents read stories to the child

Whether adults talk to the child about interesting things

Many factors around how children are brought up, including food, exercise, the
activities they do and their interaction with other people, can affect their cognitive
development.

Cognitive development means that the child's brain is developing to be able to think
in more independent, responsible, creative and problem-solving ways.

What are concepts?

Language concepts are abstract ideas which can't be seen or touched in any tangible
way. For example, colour is a concept. You can't see or touch it. You can, however, see
examples, such as red, blue, green and yellow.

There are many such concepts that children of primary age learn to understand as
they develop.

For example, children can't understand the concept of time until around the age of 8,
9 or 10. Grammar is another concept which children usually don't fully understand
until about 11 years old.

A word game (Snake word)

The teacher's already divided the learners into two groups and is about to start the
activity.

How easily could children aged seven complete this activity?

It would be difficult. They're just starting to understand the concept of spelling and the
social skills of co-operation.

How easily could children aged ten complete this activity?

They would do it much more easily than seven-year-olds as they would be more
familiar with spelling and also more able to work together.

Teaching tip

The primary English classroom involves training children in the four linguistic skills:
listening, speaking, reading and writing.

However, it also involves developing children's non-linguistic skills, such as using

cognitive skills and understanding concepts.

How children develop

What are the main differences in development you've noticed across the different age
groups below?

four activities that children can usually do independently at five years old:

Use stairs

Use a spoon

Dress and undress

Copy basic shapes

three activities that children can usually do independently at eight years old:

Tell the time

Work in a group

Read simple books

 Sensorimotor

0–2 years old

Children learn through trial and error.

 Preoperational

2–7 years old

Children engage in pretend play.

 Concrete operational

7–11 years old

Piaget thought this was the starting point of logical thought.

 Formal operational

11 years+

Children can start to infer meaning and understand abstract thinking.

Unit 2 – Cognitive skills and concepts

Concepts

As children develop, they need support to understand some everyday concepts.

Here are some of the concepts that young children learn at school:

 Colour

 Space

 Opposites

 Quantity

 Frequency

 Location

 Sets

 Growth

 Cycles

Cognitive skills

Learners need to use a range of cognitive skills to complete tasks in the classroom.
Here are some commonly used cognitive skills.

 Measuring: saying how big, long, tall, high or heavy something or somebody is

 Evaluating: assessing the value or quality of something

 Checking: looking at something and, for example, deciding if it's correct

 Observing: looking at or watching something carefully

 Matching: recognising similarities between things

 Describing: Saying what the characteristics of something are

 Predicting: Saying what you think is going to happen

 Comparing: Looking at more than one thing and making statements about their
similarities and differences

 Ranking: Putting things in order of their importance

 Labelling: Writing a name next to something/someone

Activity: Stand up, Sit down

Stand up: if the sentence is true

Sit down: if the sentence is false

Purpose: Warm-up

Feedback
Concepts: The children need to know the lexical set – or vocabulary – for wild
animals. They also need to know how to describe these animals (tall, short, etc.).

Cognitive skills: The true/false activity is used to test memory. Memory is a

cognitive skill. To be able to do this activity, the learners have studied wild animals
and adjectives in previous lessons.

Teaching tip

Activity types are concepts, so it's a good idea to teach new language with a familiar
activity type, and to use familiar language with a new activity type.

For example, if you want to use a matching game for the first time, use pictures and
words that your learners know well. The challenge will be in the concept of the game
and its rules, not the language.

When learners know the game well, then you can use it to practise new language.
Then, the challenge is in the language, not the game.

Categories of cognitive skills

One way to categorise cognitive skills comes from Bloom's taxonomy, which he
developed in the 1950s.

It was revised in 2001, and this taxonomy of thinking skills has been widely used by
teachers in planning their teaching.

Bloom identifies three basic or lower-order skills:

 remembering

 understanding

 applying.

He also identifies three higher-order skills:

 analysing

 evaluating

 creating.

The table shows the thinking skills ranked. The most basic thinking skill is at the
bottom – remembering – and the highest-order skill is at the top – creating.
Lower-order thinking skills: Remembering; Understanding; Applying

Lower-order thinking skills can be defined as simple and unchallenging skills, such as
when you are storing factual knowledge.

Remembering: You can say what you know.

You can also ask other questions to check the facts of the story, such as Who said…?
Which character did…? What happened first? What happened next?

Understanding: You can describe the information (language, for example) in your own
words or say how you feel about it.

You can also ask questions like Who is the main character? Why did [character] do…?
Why did they go to…?

Applying: You can use your knowledge to solve problems.

You could also ask learners what would happen if the main character was an animal or
if the story took place in a different place or time.

Higher-order thinking skills: Analysing; Evaluating; Creating

Higher-order thinking skills involve tasks which are more difficult and challenging such
as combining information from many sources, deciding how accurate or reliable it is
and then using it to make decisions.

Analysing: You can break down information into parts and consider the reasoning
behind it.

To help learners evaluate, the teacher wrote this question: What did you think of the
story? Why?, Which part did you like best?

Evaluating: You can think about whether something will work or if it needs adapting.

Creating: You can develop your own version of something, such as a film review.

You can also ask them to continue the story and say what happens next.

Encouraging the use of thinking skills

One way of promoting thinking skills is to plan and vary the kinds of questions you
use. Teachers should help learners to use a mix of higher- and lower-order thinking
skills.

Example:

You'll see a range of questions used in an English lesson on the topic of healthy
diets. Choose the five questions that promote higher-order thinking skills.
What do you think of the diet? Would you like it? Why? Why not?

You're inviting a famous sports star for dinner. What would you serve?

Susan eats fast food every day. What advice can you give her?

Make a list of what your group's eaten today. How would you rank it in terms of
healthiness, from one to ten? Why?

Your school's entered a national competition to produce the healthiest meal. What
would you make? Why?

 The questions that promote higher-order thinking skills allow the children to give
opinions, evaluate information or to use their imagination and give more creative
answers.

For example, you could start by asking them for feedback on a story they've just read
in a simple way, such as giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

Other ways of getting learners to feed back on a story include asking them to:

 hold up emotion cards to show how they feel about the story

 draw how the main character feels (at different stages of the story). This could
be done through using blank circles to represent smiley faces

 mime parts of the story or emotions shown in the story.

Then ask learners what their favourite part of the story was and encourage them to
give a reason. This will need to be scaffolded through prompts, using more simple
questions first, leading to more complex questions:

 Hands up if you liked the bear!

 Point to the page you liked the best.

 Was it a happy story or a sad story?

 What made Keely sad?

Unit 3. Activities for developing thinking skills

Activity types

Look at the first two activities. What concept do learners need to know to complete
these two activities?
Feedback

For both activities, learners need to know the concept of the days of the week.

However, each activity needs learners to use different cognitive skills.

Activity A uses sequencing skills: learners are given the days of the week but need to
put them in the correct order.

Activity B uses pattern recognition skills: learners have to find the correctly spelled
words within the jumbled letters of the word search.

You're going to look at three more activities in this section. For each activity you need
to decide which concepts and cognitive skills learners need to complete the task.

Activity 1
Feedback

Concepts: Learners need to know the lexical set for furniture and understand where
you'd find these items in a house.

Cognitive skills: Learners need to use identifying and labelling skills.

Many activities use a variety of cognitive skills, so you may think of ones which are
not listed here.

Activity 2

Feedback

Concepts: Learners need to understand the concept of time of day.

Cognitive skills: Learners need to use identifying and recognising skills.

Activity 3

Feedback

Concepts: Learners need to know the lexical sets of furniture, colours and animals.

Cognitive skills: Learners need to use sorting skills.

More activity types

Activity 4
Feedback

Concepts: Learners need to know the lexical sets of clothes, colour, food and
hobbies.

Cognitive skills: Learners need to use identifying, deducing and labelling skills.

Activity 5

Watch a teacher using an activity review from the textbook with her learners.

Feedback

Concepts: Learners need to know consonant sounds.

Cognitive skills: Learners need to use observing and guessing skills.

Activity 6

In this activity, learners can answer in their own language. Read the teacher's
instructions, then think about the two questions that follow.

Feedback
Concepts: Learners need to know about holidays and the beach.

Cognitive skills: Learners need to use predicting skills.

Activity 7

Feedback

Concepts: Learners need to know the lexical set of wild animals.

Cognitive skills: Learners need to use problem-solving and ordering skills.

Scaffolding and extending learning

Extension tasks

Extension strategies involve making an activity or resource last longer.

They're also flexible – so if the learners need extra practice, you can allow time for
this, or if they find an activity too easy, you can extend the activity by making it more
challenging.

Teaching tip

Extending an activity can also be useful if you have five minutes of your lesson left
and nothing else planned.

Scaffolding

Alternatively, if you think a task might be too difficult for your learners, you can
provide extra support before or during the task: scaffolding.
This could be an activity that breaks the task down into more manageable steps or
provides extra help for learners to refer to.

Extending and scaffolding

You're going to look at some of the coursebook resources again and decide how you
would extend or scaffold them. Think about learners you've taught or are teaching
now, and how you could extend or scaffold each activity if:

 the learners find the task difficult

 the learners find the task too easy.

House labelling activity

Look at the activities in the question below and decide whether they're more useful if
your learners find the house labelling activity too difficult or too easy.

Four activities which are useful if the house labelling activity is too difficult:

Whole-class activity: 'point to…'

Pair work: 'show me'

Group work: matching game with words and pictures

Whole class: quiz to remember room names

During scaffolding activity a, the learners could point to the objects (cupboard, etc.)
and then the words.

You can also put learners into groups and make one the teacher, leading their
teammates to point to the correct object or word.

If the learners find the task too easy and finish quickly, they can do this extension
activity:
Extension activity
Learners take turns to describe the rooms using language they've used
before, 'I can see…' or 'There is/There are...' for example.

This could be done as a question and answer: What's in the bathroom?

Extension activities can be used as fillers or for extra practice or challenge.

Use scaffolding before or during a task if learners need extra support.

How much did you remember?

Don't forget that it's important to evaluate the concepts and cognitive skills that
you're introducing to your learners. Try to make sure that you encourage learners to
use both their lower- and higher-order thinking skills.

Reading activity
Some suggestions for how to extend or scaffold the task:

The learners find the task difficult

Ask learners to point at, circle or underline keywords in the text. Monitor closely and
correct as needed.

Another idea to reinforce learning is to put learners into groups and make a quiz about
the activity: Who's wearing a yellow T-shirt? for example.

The learners find the task too easy

Get the learners to play a guessing game in groups. They take it in turns to describe
another learner. The group members must guess who they're describing.

Learners could also do this as a written activity.

Animal anagrams activity

Finally, look at this activity once more and decide how you would adapt the activity for
learners who find it difficult and learners who find it too easy.
Review Questions

1. 'One of my favourite review activities is to put learners in pairs, and one draws a
picture of some recent vocabulary. They keep the picture hidden. Their partner asks
questions to work out what it is: Is it a clock? Is it a lamp?'

What cognitive skills do learners need to use to complete the task?

 Guessing

 Observing

 Predicting

 Memorising

In this activity, learners need to guess what their partner has drawn.

They also use memorising skills to remember the questions they have already asked
and the items in the lexical set you are reviewing.

2. 'I like playing "Odd one out" with my class. I put four pictures on the board, and in
pairs they have to say which is the odd one out and why. For example, The lemon is
the odd one out because it's not red or The lemon is the odd one out because it's a
fruit.'

What concepts do learners need to understand to complete this task?

Opposites

Sets

Cycles

Learners need to understand the idea of sets and why something is part of a set or
not.
Learners may need to use many other concepts depending on the pictures you use,
for example colour, places, shapes, etc.

3. 'I give learners a worksheet with short descriptions of objects. Then I hide objects
and pictures around the room. Learners have to read the description, find the object
or its picture, then write the word on their worksheet.'

What cognitive skills do learners need to use to complete the task?

 Describing

 Identifying

 Matching

 Labelling

 Observing

Learners need a number of different skills for this task: identifying, observing,
matching and labelling.

You could extend the task by asking learners to write a description for their friends.
Then they would need to use describing skills.

4. Select the benefits of using extension activities.

 They can provide extra challenge.

 They can be used for extra practice.

 They can provide extra support if an activity is difficult.

 You can use them as a filler if you have extra time.

 MODULE 3. Understanding assessment for learning for primary

Unit 1 – Purpose and types of assessment

Types of assessment

three ways to categorise assessment:

1. informal and formal assessment

2. self- and peer assessment

3. summative and formative assessment.

Formal and informal assessment

a. Informal

Informal assessment can be easily integrated into everyday classroom activities. They
can be fun and relaxed and often learners won't even realise they're being assessed.

This happens when you observe learners to see how well they're doing and then give
them feedback on their performance. For example, a teacher can carry out
assessment of learners during speaking activities throughout a course by keeping
notes.

The teacher can use those notes to evaluate learners at the end of the course. This
type of assessment gives important insight into learners' understanding and ability
that may not be represented accurately through other types of assessment.

four approaches that are examples of informal assessment:

 Group presentations

 Monitoring speaking activities

 Follow-up questioning

 Learner-created quizzes

b. Formal

This is when you give learners tests or exams and give them a grade. It's pre-planned
and systematic and designed to find out what the learners have learned.

For example, at the end of the course, the learners have a final exam to see if they
pass to the next course or not.

The majority of assessment in educational settings is formal and is usually in the form
of tests.

Giving learners exams or tests is the most common form of formal assessment. They
are usually at the end of a period of learning, such as a topic or unit, and learners
receive a grade or score. Learners know that they are being assessed.

Both informal and formal assessments are useful for making valid and useful
assessments of learners' knowledge and performance.
Many teachers combine the two, for example by evaluating one skill using informal
assessment, such as observing group work as you saw in the video, and another using
formal tools, for example a discrete item grammar test.

three approaches that are examples of formal assessment:

 Vocabulary test

 Giving a final grade

 A written book report

Peer and self-assessment

You can ask learners to assess their own language ability. This is called self-
assessment. In order for self- assessment to work well, learners need clear criteria.
They can even develop the criteria together with you or in groups.

There are lots of interesting ways to use self-assessment with your learners, for
example a learner diary, where each learner keep[s] records of their work and
problems they've encountered. One-on-one tutorials with learners can also be helpful
for getting them to reflect on how they're doing. This could work in small groups as
well.

A popular method for getting learners to assess themselves is with rating scales or
self-assessment forms. They can assess themselves on particular criteria – for
example, 'I used paragraphs' or 'I checked my spelling and pronunciation'.

Two easy ways of introducing primary learners to self-assessment are traffic lights and
exit slips.

Traffic lights

An easy way for teachers to assess how confident learners are at doing a specific
activity is to use traffic lights. Learners have three circles they can hold up. The green
circle means they find it easy, orange means it's OK and red means it's difficult.

The teacher can quickly identify which learners need more support and which learners
need to be challenged more. It also gives you a quick overview of how the class is
feeling.

You can replace traffic lights with smiley faces, thumbs up or even by using different
parts of the classroom.

It can be a good idea to use traffic lights in notebooks too, so the learners aren't
influenced by what others in the class do. You can monitor and see what each learner
puts in their notebook.

Exit slips

Exit slips also give you a good idea of how individual learners self-assess themselves.

Learners write the answer to a question on a piece of paper and hand it to the teacher
at the end of the lesson. For example, 'Write one word you learned today' or 'What did
you enjoy about today's lesson?'

The answers allow the teacher to quickly assess how learners feel about the lesson.
Seven benefits of using self-assessment

1. Learners become more independent as a result of reflecting on their learning.

Are my learners independent? Or do they rely on me for everything?

2. Self-assessment builds motivation and raises awareness.

Would my learners feel more motivated if they helped create criteria for assessment?
Would they be more aware of their work?

3. Self-assessment is helpful in terms of changing perceptions of learning –

learners know 'how' they learn rather than just 'what' they learn.

Do my learners know 'how' they learn? Do they know how they can learn best, how to
check their work, etc?

4. Learners become more involved and have a greater sense of ownership in the
learning process when they assess themselves.

Do my learners feel a sense of ownership about their work? Do they realise the value
of learning, or do they only think about 'passing a test'?

5. Learning doesn't stop outside the classroom, and learners can transfer these
skills to other areas of life.

Do I ever talk to my learners about reflecting on the way they learn and develop not
only in the classroom but how it applies on the playground and at home as well?

6. Learners can 'see' their progress better.

Do my learners have a way of seeing where they've come from and where they're
going?

7. Teachers are able to use feedback from their learners to shape lessons to
individual and group needs.

Do I use feedback from my learners to shape the way I teach?

Peer assessment

In peer assessment, learners assess each other's work using a set of criteria.

Peer assessment (like self-assessment) can help learners build their skills in critical
thinking, reflection and self-awareness. These are highly transferable skills.

Look at some examples of criteria that could be used for peer assessment.
Teaching tip

It's a good idea to go through an example together with the learners first to check
they understand what the criteria mean.

The learners could use smiley faces, a tick or cross, or 'yes' and 'no' against each
criterion.

Summative assessment

This is formal and used to evaluate learning at the end of a defined period – typically
at the end of a unit, term or school year.

Look at the table below showing how summative assessment works.

Notice how after each topic the assessment is only used to give grades. The results
are not used to guide teaching and learning of the next topic.
Summative assessment

 The goal is to evaluate learning.

 Learning is usually compared against a standard or benchmark.

 It usually has a high point value – or is high-stakes.

Formative assessment

 Stage 1

Assess through observation, tasks, etc.

 Stage 2

Adapt learning goals and/or assessment criteria as appropriate.

 Stage 3

Assess through observation, tasks, etc.

The teacher observes learners doing tasks in order to understand their strengths and
weaknesses. The results of formative assessment are used to improve the learning
that follows rather than to give grades or scores.

Formative assessment

 The goal is to monitor learning for feedback that helps the teacher improve their
teaching.

 It helps learners identify their strengths and weaknesses and helps the
instructor realise where learners are having difficulties so that they can address
problems immediately.

 It usually has a low point value – or is low-stakes.

Three items are examples of formative assessment:

 The first draft of a poster for feedback

 A two-sentence summary of a video you watched

 Exit slips

In your classroom

List of linguistic factors:

1. Written homework

2. Written grammar activities

3. Speaking activities

4. Integrated skills activities (e.g. projects)

5. Listening tasks

6. Reading tasks

7. Writing tasks
 8. Vocabulary tasks

Some non-linguistic areas of assessment:

1. Attitude effort

2. Participation in class

3. Group work

4. Organisation of work

5. Presentation of work

6. Behaviour

You can combine formal and informal assessment. For example, you can assess a skill
using both group work (informal) and a discrete item grammar test (formal).

There are many interesting ways for learners to do self-assessment, such as journals,
self-assessment forms and one-to-one tutorials.

When learners have clear criteria, peer assessment can contribute to learning, give
learners more timely feedback and reduce your workload.

Unit 2 – Informal assessment for learning

Introducing informal assessment

A list of benefits of introducing informal assessment:

 You can see more quickly how a learner is developing.

 You can quickly adapt your teaching plans to address any misunderstandings.

 You can notice if an individual is having difficulties and do something to help

immediately.

 Doing informal assessment throughout the term means you don't have to rely
on one test at the end of a unit/term/year.

 It increases opportunities for improving teaching and learning as you continually

get feedback.

Reasons for introducing informal assessment:

 Informal assessment collects feedback that can then be used to improve learner
performance in future lessons.
 By getting regular feedback on learning, you can deal with any problems
immediately rather than waiting for the results of a test at the end of a topic,
unit or course.
 Continual informal assessment puts less pressure on learners than having one
test at the end of a unit.

Three specific challenges that teachers often face, and how to address them:

It's difficult to get around the whole class

  Focus on good classroom management in order to assess learners when they're
in groups or pairs.

 Observe and assess different learners in different parts of the lesson or on

different days.

You need to be very organised

 Have the different stages of the lesson and materials organised in advance.

 Incorporate assessment into your lesson plan and plan your resources.

It's difficult to remember all feedback

 Take notes as you're observing an activity.

 At the end of each lesson, record any information that will help you plan for the
next lesson(s).

Introducing self- and peer assessment

Benefits of asking learners to self-assess or peer assess:

 Learners become less dependent on the teacher and learn to evaluate their own
learning and performance.

 When learners are encouraged to reflect on their learning, they are more likely
to understand what they need to do to progress.

 It helps learners reflect and self-correct.

 The teacher also gets more feedback and is able to adapt teaching in response.

Some of the challenges that teachers may face, and how you might overcome them:

 Getting learners into the habit of self- and peer assessing.

Empowering learners to reflect on their own work means they become less reliant on
the teacher's feedback.

When learners reflect on their learning, they are more likely to understand what they
need to do to progress.

 Helping them to understand why it's useful.

Demonstrating the use of assessment criteria before a task helps develop learners'
confidence in peer and self-assessment.

This can be done in pairs, groups or as a whole class. It can make learners more
confident in assessing themselves and their classmates.

Three benefits of doing peer assessment in pairs or groups:

1. Learners can discuss their ideas.

2. It's less stressful for learners.
3. It's more anonymous.

 Friends may not want to mark each other's work.

 Learners may be too soft or too hard on themselves.

Three benefits of negotiating success criteria with learners:

1. Learners are likely to be more motivated.

2. It helps learners to understand the task better.
3. It gives learners more confidence in applying the criteria.

Three tips for introducing self-assessment into your classroom:

 Create simple criteria for learners to assess themselves against.

 Give learners personal goals.

 Use traffic lights for learners to show how they feel about an activity.

Unit 3 – In the classroom

Planning for assessment

The lesson has five stages and will be used for informal assessment purposes.

The five stages of the lesson are:

1. starter/warmer (5 mins)
Feedback

You could assess learners on their use of past tense verbs.

You could also assess listening, in particular following instructions.

It's probably not a good idea to assess individuals in the warmer, as they haven't had
time to fully get into the language yet at this stage.

This information can help you decide what to focus on during the lesson by identifying
strengths and weaknesses of the learners.

2. presentation (10 mins)

3. consolidation (10 mins)
4. extension (15 mins)
Example of a self-assessment form:

5. closing (5 mins)
Feedback

In this final stage of the lesson, the learners are familiar with the type of activity, so
it's a good opportunity to introduce some peer assessment.

You could give the learners short success criteria related to one or more of the
learning outcomes. For example:

 Does your partner use the correct past simple form of the verbs?

 Does your partner use the correct sequencing words?

Assessing learners in the closing stage of a lesson can give you information that will
help you plan your next lesson(s) based on their strengths and weaknesses.